She gazed from the beautifully strung millennium bridge, white tight ropes that formed little pyramids swung on cobble stones that trembled with the passing train and sprung fresh with the rain, standing exotically on the Thames, overlooking the mighty brown Thames; if one peered long enough you could see pale blood from dead wartime soldiers in the deepest ripples, covered with sooth from the industrial revolution, dark beauty riding on the moon’s shadow. She wasn’t even drunk, her mind just floated in history and back and forth to the present day England, imagination let wild and free to interpret the artistic surrounding of the beautifully lit banks just above the embankment. It was a beautiful sight but beauty and pain seem to be the best of friends, hidden under a mask of strokes and colours, brushes and brows, bruises unseen and feelings unfelt, like beauty was a mask to un-remember the past. She actually felt ugly, a gray little duckling left ashore to see the wonderful world which was her home and yet wasn’t really.
She paused in the middle of the bridge, soaked herself till the lights around made her feel dark and hollow and empty, the kind of emptiness that makes the dead wake from their death, the kind that scares emptiness itself and sends it howling into the night, pain people can seldom see, people seldom notice and the kind of pain often plastered by a well stretched smile, as they say ‘ear to ear.’ She walked the first part of the cobbled bridge, weighing her footsteps carefully, like each tiny step would send a string flying down the bridge, London bridge is hanging some would say, and on her the little ducking clutched her webbed feet. She walked till her feet hurt from her thin soles of her black pumps, till her body trembled in sync with the frequency of the trembling bridge, on either side were the white little pyramid like tight ropes glued together, a pattern which is quite similar to if you have ever played the thread game. Yes the thread game, you take a long thread knotted at the end and dribble it around your fingers till art forms shapes and the artist feels the pride in those. A train passage was just in middle of these two threaded designs, smooth poles and elegant designs, it almost made her feel ugly, quite succeeding so.
She swung to the motion of the bridge, walked till the end and climbed the other thread, the view changed, magnificent buildings bathing in yellow light, her eyes felt like someone has just changed the lens of the camera, she rememberd her canon and yet knew the canon actually saw what her eyes made them see but this was clear and distinct, like its details were screaming to be noticed. She paused to the ringing strings of a guitarist on the bridge. He wasn’t a good one, nor did have an angelic voice, but his instrument made some wonderful sounds, it was an old one, natural wood of brown from its look, quite a good looking guitar she thought. She was thankful though, he was atleast singing, with a guitar case lying bare naked and open, two fifty pence two people had dropped, she bent down to give her share for the entertainment she was going to fully relish, for the joy of having music on the bridge swinging to its own melancholies, the guitarist said ‘bless you,’ and she really needed to be blessed, not by preachers not singers, just blest by the dark hanging clouds right above her head. Rain was sure to fall she thought, but she didn’t care. She cared about nothing these days, not even her-self.
The Buddha said nothingness was it, wasn’t it? Maybe she was getting there, becoming a flesh devoid of pain and suffering, suffering is a thought she had figured that by now, the thought would end with the end of thinking; she knew she was far from it. Oh! those thoughts, they didn’t trouble her, not anymore, they amused her, she could even laugh at her own miserable plight, she called them adventures, life called them troubles, but the Globe was right on her right, she wanted to scream ‘what’s in a name Shakespeare and was quite sure his floating ghost might shout back at her saying ‘hey that is my line.’
She walked a bit further, she was intrigued that sometimes her thoughts were actually quite intelligent. She shrugged and gazed till no thoughts were in her mind and all she saw was sight, oh! beautiful sight of London, stretched miles till the dark blue horizons and careless strokes of clouds caught her eyes, froze her thoughts for those few eternity like seconds, gripped her heart and squeezed her might, as the strength drained and she descended from her trans like state, all she wanted to do was cry, wail and howl, shatter the peaceful night like falling stars, shooting meteorites kissing the earth, clattering the silence of the night and the harmony of the passerby. She wanted to stare into a stranger’s eyes and question them if beauty hid pain so well and if so well and why so well? For what so well?
She walked a bit further, the bridge ended and began a little pale yellow dungeon, graffiti on either side and a phrase caught her eye, it said, are you a mooner?
She knew those words well and what connotations of state of mind it stood for but she wanted to write next to it, are you a moaner? Sometimes do you moan aloud, if not, you should!
Grumbling with her own thoughts, she descended the stairs and there were two lovely gentlemen, they were not suited and booted like the corporate Kings walking past but they were strumming such heavenly tunes of Spanish music and the instrumentals touched the deepest and the furthest veins of her heart and she could feel it tremble, with pleasure, sadness, beauty, love and feelings only the chords can touch, music was what she really needed to balm her soul.
She rested her feet, her heart, closed her eyes and floated with the sounds of music that reverberated around the Thames.
It was finally a beautiful night.
